Financial Times: Canada oil sands rules get UK backing
By Jean Eaglesham, Chief Political Correspondent
Published: April 9 2008 02:53 | Last updated: April 9 2008 02:53
Tough environmental regulations that will increase significantly the costs faced by two British companies, BP and Royal Dutch Shell, in exploiting Canada’s huge oil sands reserves were on Wednesday backed by Malcolm Wicks, the energy minister.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Wicks also sought to justify the government’s lobbying in Brussels to allow carbon capture and storage projects to count towards the UK’s target for renewable energy.
Speaking during a visit to Canada, the minister lauded the “very far-sighted” move by Canada’s federal government to force new oil sands projects to capture and store their carbon dioxide emissions after 2012. “Canada’s oils sands could provide up to 5 per cent of global supply … [but] I understand the concerns about the environmental impact,” he said.
Canada’s stringent carbon capture requirements will add to the costs of the projects planned by BP and Shell in the sands, an environmentally sensitive reserve that is the largest outside Saudi Arabia.
Mr Wicks admitted the regulations had commercial consequences, saying: “if you look at it very narrowly, it will impact on the costs of the companies.” But he stressed the “prohibitive” long-term cost of failing to address climate change, including a failure to find sustainable ways of exploiting fossil fuels.
Market mechanisms, such as the European emissions trading scheme, would play a main role in making low carbon technology more affordable, Mr Wicks said. “The smart money will be on the development of a North American carbon market, including the US and Canada,” he said.
Mr Wicks set out plans to use this week’s bilateral talks in Canada to explore how the UK could work with Canada on developing global agreements to mandate “clean” coal-fired power plants, in China as well as the west. The UK is “seeking to build consensus around a strong package” of carbon capture measures at June’s G8 meeting of energy ministers, “en route to a meaningful global emissions deal” next year, the minister writes in an article in Wednesday’s Toronto Star.
Green groups argue that Britain’s moral authority to lead such talks is undermined by its stance in Europe. Ministers are lobbying the European Commission to allow carbon capture projects to count towards the UK’s target of increasing its energy from renewable sources from 3 per cent to 15 per cent by 2020.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
